Former bartender turned adman brings home the gold, whether in Manila or Malaysia
Interview Angel Guerrero | as featured in the March/April 2013 issue of adobo magazine
Before he became a sought-after creative, Gavin Simpson spent five years working behind a bar, a place that has always been dear to the heart of the advertising community. Bars are after all, the go-to place to celebrate agency highs or wallow in their lows. Even to find inspiration. Or so it’s been said.
So it was no big mystery that the stint, which included two years during college, eventually led Malaysia-born Simpson to his career of choice: Advertising. Ad people, he found, were no different from the barfly nursing a glass of whisky till the early hours. “They smelled bad, were incoherent most of the time and frequently broke. And that’s just the women,” Simpson joked. What they did have though was a skill to tell stories and jokes, a talent that separates advertising’s best from the rest of the field.
The parallels and “being told it pays well” led Simpson to ditch bar tending for advertising, a career perhaps appropriate for someone who says he is “fruit and nuts rather than just bland vanilla”. Simpson is of course speaking of the dizzying mix of Scottish, Dutch, French, Indian and Ceylonese blood coursing through his veins.
But his early advertising days were more mundane than memorable. There was a lot of licking of stamps and stuffing envelopes during his first six years of agency life at Ogilvy & Mather Direct, where he started as junior art director cum visualizer in 1991.
Seven years later, he switched to mainstream advertising at Naga DDB and has never looked back. Simpson returned to Ogilvy in 2000 and later joined Y&R Malaysia before packing up for a series of overseas stints that included Leo Burnett Kreasindo in Indonesia. By 2005, he was back at what would prove his longest run at Ogilvy, relocating first to Manila and, later, Hong Kong as executive creative director before heading home in 2010 as chief creative officer of the Malaysian office. “In total, I have spent 15 years with Ogilvy. I like their brand, their bravery and their style.”
Whether at home or overseas, Simpson has been a force on the new business and awards front, a performance he credits to nature and nurture, hard work and lots of luck. “I feel creativity is like a muscle, but you need to nurture it. The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.”
It helps that his better half, Gladys, also came from the industry and understands the demands of the business. “I do occasionally share some ideas with her. If she rejects it, I don’t talk to her for a couple of days,” he laughs.
Jokes aside, the Hong Kong office outgunned pitch rivals for Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts’ prized global a
ccount, the Mass Transit Railway and a piece of business from New World Development under Simpson’s creative leadership.
Malaysia too has delivered wins with Malaysia Airlines and BMW, effectively erasing a start Simpson no doubt wishes to forget. “On my first week back, I walked straight into a pitch and we lost an account. Shortly after that, we lost another huge chunk of business. Our work wasn’t inspiring. We were ranked 33rd in the world among all Ogilvy & Mather Advertising offices.”
That is now history. In the last two years, Simpson has led the Malaysian team to triumph at D&AD, arguably one of the hardest shows to win on the festival circuit. He scored a Yellow Pencil for the Lego campaign in graphic design and a nomination for Pictionary’s ‘Quick Draw Wins’ in the press category plus two in-book honors in the 2012 show.
Other awards include a fistful of Gold and Silver Pencils at One Show, making the office the 3rd most awarded agency at the 2012 competition, and Cannes Lions for Pictionary plus other wins that propelled Kuala Lumpur to second place as the network’s most awarded office.
Incidentally, Pictionary was the 4th Most Awarded Print Ad in the World in the Gunn 2012 Report, while Land Rover’s ‘Direction’, created when Simpson freelanced for Lowe Malaysia in mid-2000, delivered a Gold Lion and another Gunn honor as the 2nd most awarded print ad in 2006.
“You need to become your own worst critic and tenacious enough to keep coming up with ads faster than the client can kill them,” he says.
In Manila, Simpson is best remembered for sparking Ogilvy’s creative renaissance.
For the full story, grab a copy of adobo magazine’s Anniversary Issue (March/April 2013).
